RV12 Finish Kit continuation

Catch-up Blog

We're still doing miscellaneous things, because of the gas tank messs. We borrowed a cable tensiometer and adjusted the cables to the rear stabilator. We painted some more parts of the interior, and started to put in some of the panels in the rear area where the gas tank will go and the luggage compartment. THEN we discovered that somehow or another we forgot to put in about 8 nutplates, but we figured how to put them by guiding wire through the holes and pulling up the nutplate through the hole where the nutplates go. We need to order some more blind rivets to finish it.
We also fitted the wings, finally, and that took longer than we anticipated but it will be easier next time; if you deburr the inside of the tubes, the bushings will fit much better. We also put the brakes on.
We're going to start working on the canopy tomorrow.

"Bit-and-Pieces"construction

Well, it's been awhile since we've made any posts but we haven't done anything in sequence, primarily because we've been waiting on parts for the fuel tank. We requested some cap nuts twice, and both times they sent us the wrong nuts, but the third time was the charm. We are now at the point where we recently installed the landing gear spars, and had a pretty difficult time of it. Either the rivets were installed improperly or we just didn't have the skills to get the bracket for the gear installed. One of the pictures of the undercarriage shows the area where the strut fits, and the rivets that kept the bracket from fitting. We snipped the rivets that were there and then put in rivets from this side. I don't know if WE put in the rivets from the wrong side or Vans put them in, anyway, we couldn't fit the bracket that secured the struts without replacing the rivets.
Today, we took the 'whale' off its side and put it on the ground with her new 'legs' installed. I think we're ready to start making the zoom-zoom noises...
I over-torqued one of the bolts that holds on the bracket so we had to order another one from Spruce Aircraft in Peachtree City.

PAGE 32-09

May 16, we skipped this page 32-09 since we don't have the wings on-site, but we did install the "thousand legs" (MS21266-1N) as George calls them around the flaperon torque tube. We skipped over to page 32-11 and hooked up the rudder cables to the rudder pedals. We used glue to put the washers on the pedals and made life a whole life simpler. We made the rudder pedal rigging stop but had to make some allowances for the steps that were already installed. My biggest struggle was putting the !@#$# cotter pins up under that 'dashboard'...
PAGE 32-12 no problems here either, again using the glue on the washers. We skipped to the gas tank construction and did a dry run, since George wanted to visualize how the thing went together. Today we worked about 6 hours, again. We'll probably pick up again on Wednesday. I'm including a photo of George in one of his usual positions and another of the rudder stop box.

MAY 12th, PAGE 31-13

George got some new pins and he decided to go ahead and solder them on the wires I think I already mentioned how difficult it was to run the wires around the rudder pedals and I have the bruise from it.
We put on the plastic ties and made the wiring look a little neater.
PAGE 31-14 it calls for the sub backshells for the connectors but we didn't get any in our kit.
PAGE 31-15 was straight forward with the ELT bracket.
PAGE 32-02 had us installing the brake reservoir, unfortunately, we called Vans and told them that we thought the reservoir was faulty, so they sent us another one on the next day. We installed the nylon tee in the reservoir, but it still doesn't feel right.
PAGE 32-03 George worked on the flap handle while I worked on wiring.
PAGE 32-04 was frustrating in that it took me 2 hours putting on the flap handle pushrod assembly, which was my fault. I could have done them in 10 minutes had I simply used a mirror.
PAGE 32-05 was more tedious work, making holes line up and gluing washers on bearings so we could install bolts and nuts.
PAGE 32-06 George fabricated more parts from stock for the flaperon pushrod assembly.
PAGE 32-07 was more building for the flaperon detent bracket/stop. no problems.
We stopped on page 32-08 after cutting the nylon spacers for the flaperon torque tubes.

Page 31-06

May 7th, we got the reed switches in and like everyone else, they didn't work. So, cut about 1/4 inch off the end of the WD-1217 and it worked great. We tested everything using a continuity tester and DID NOT use the test light setup that Van's used.
Page 31-07, routing the wire harness is one of the biggest pains because of the pedal assembly. I've had to run 'lead' copper wires in order to pull the harness wires over the pedals. There's got to be an easier way to do that. I also found that trying to remove the pedals didn't work because the nutplates kept us from pulling the plastic attach blocks out. Then, trying to reinstall them took about 2 hours because of the location of the holes etc.
Page 31-08 was a no problem.
Page 31-09 was ok, just a pain running the wires through the snap bushings and getting our hands inbetween the lightning holes; I'm really glad we smoothed all the edges of the metal, otherwise I'd be all sliced up.
May 9th, we continued on step 8, page 31-09, had to read some of the directions 4 times until I understood what they were talking about. We ran out of female spade connectors; didn't think we'd need to count those in inventory.
Page 31-10 no problems except when it came to installing the jacks for the headsets for pilot and copilot; we had to install xtra washers in order to get them snug on the metal.
PAGE 31-11, George got a couple of bicycle hand grips and got them on after using a little 'personal lubricant' jelly... Installing the 'sticks' were no big deal.
May 12th, Page 31-12 was difficult because we were pushing the capacity of the cushioned clamps and it was a chore running the wires through them. Even though I'm 6'0, I'm double-jointed and that helped running the wires in step 3 around the fuselage frame.
PAGE 31-13 was the tough one I eluded to earlier. Getting the two cushion clamps on inbetween the two rods of the pedal assembly was a nightmare. Most of the work was done by feel, AFTER I disconnected the rudder assembly from the instrument shelf. Ast least that gave me a little more wiggle room. We managed to lose a couple of pins from the wiring harness, so George is going to get some more tomorrow.

WIRING Pg 31-04

5/6 Back to spaghetti routing...Starting on Step 10, we separated the colors according to the directions. It really helps to take one SENTENCE at a time, as there is so much information in regards to color of the individual wires. No problems on page 4 or 5; just make sure you have the tabs pointed in the correct direction on the F-1207B Assembly. On page 6, we installed the magnets in the handles of the WD-1217, but we sawed off about 3/8 of an inch to make the magnets function. We tested them with a continuity tester. We put in a couple of 'hidden' snap bushings that would have been easier to install if we had them earlier in the construction process. We had the autopilot harness on backorder, from page 7, so we had to wait until it arrives to finish that part of the wiring, and that took us ovr to page 9, step 7. We went over to page 10, and stopped at step 7. We had a little problem in installing the headphone jacks, in that we had to add a couple of washers to make the jacks 'grab' onto the metal.
No photos for this set.